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0?8 BOOK OF THE A. AND A. KITE.
the intrusion of false brethren and profane persons,
spies, who might cause their arrest During tho
early persecutions they took refuge in the vast cata-
combs which stretched for miles in every direction
under the city of Rome, and are supposed to have
been of Etruscan origin. There, amid labyrinthine
windings, deep caverns, hidden chambers, chapels
and tombs, the persecuted fugitives found refuge,
and there they performed the ceremonies of the
mysteries.
They conversed together figuratively, and by the
use of symbols ; and those who were initiated were
bound by solemn promise not to disclose or even
converse about the secrets of the mysteries, except
with such as had received them under the same
sanction.
This then is the history of the sufferings of Jesus
Christ, and its Masonic application as made by the
Christian Mason. Some of the ceremonies of the
first three degrees, which, whatever your faith, may
not be uninteresting to you, since you are in no wise
required to receive them as correct, are as foFows
M.\ E.'. Behold, the darkness is past, and the
true light now shineth. My brother, you have before
this been brought to light in Masonry, when the
Worshipful Master, with the aid of the brethren,
: